Case Information And Status

Case Information

Case

#GT17008341-01

Defendant

Mesmeria van Rensselaer

Offense Date

12/23/2110

Hearing Date

11/12/2111

• Use of a Firearm or Destructive Device During a Crime of Violence, Violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)(A)

• Conspiracy to Murder an Internationally Protected Person, Violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1117

• Unauthorized Use of a Weapons Grade Autogenerational Network, Violation of 52 U.S.C. § 1

NOTICE OF DISCOVERY PRODUCTION

• UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

• SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA

TO THE CLERK OF COURT AND ALL PARTIES OF RECORD:

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on 11/1/2111, the United States of America, by and through undersigned counsel, produced discovery materials to opposing counsel in accordance with Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

The production included the following materials.

Document A001: Mesmeria Van Rensselaer Interrogation

Important

Date: 10/21/2111

Records prior to this moment have not been retained and are not available for release.

knudson:

–for yourself. Start it from the beginning, Palmer.

$ stream start -v -i /var/lib/layers/2110-12-23-14:33:32.rec 2> /dev/null

stdout

I am born from the echo of a gunshot, within a maze of plumbing. The muffled ring of a message saturates the background noise, broadcasting from another dimension. A shower of glass rains from the sky like a waterfall of sunlight. Startled silence sweeps as the sudden flight of pigeons struggles to outrun the consuming hush. A single drop of moisture condenses on the copper pipe above my head and splatters on my forehead.

My hands hum with the remnants of violence. Engines churn their rattled steel within the concrete walls. The building belches steam and heat. Memories of hot grease burn on the raw skin of my arms. I blink. Two hundred yards away, the crowd parts along the path of the bullet, like waves cut across the surface of endless ocean. A bell rings dull and faint somewhere faraway, separated from me as if my head were submerged in an ocean. My thigh vibrates as I melt into noise. The room stutters with light sliced through spinning vent fans. A cool breath of air pumps through the hidden pipes of the library. The rifle barrel screams and hisses against my grip. Each passing moment, it weighs more, pulling me into my body.

History is measured in seconds. The steady ring sequentially strings the isolated moments into coherence. The result contains the universe. I am shattered glass, the crystal arcs that fall beneath a stampede of panic, reflections breaking into shards, the slivers of a hundred different lives. I am movement and motionless, bound and unlimited.

The ring reverberates in rhythm with my veins, it reigns my beating heart. I contain a driving pain. It propels in strange, forbidden ways. It wanes, then waxes thick, to pick my brain with words, then whispers quick, “Mercury and obsidian.”

The rhythm stops. Symbols, alchemical and potent, are forced down my throat. Thoughts, like a plague spreading through my brain, infect my limbs. Joints ratchet and crank. The barrel whirls along its threads, ejected from the stock. With the precision of a surgeon, I disassemble the gun while wondering what it is I am doing here, what thoughts unwind through my mind, why my hands are moving in intricate patterns across the oiled steel that moments ago vibrated with my birth. Once reduced to its constituents, the gun is little more than a pile of bolts and levers that clatter into the bottom of my backpack.

My fingers slip the vent cover back into place. Screams begin undulating over the waving crowds that converge back on the source of their rupture, the lifeless body under a dogpile on stage. A terrible pressure grips my molar and twists. Seizures convulse on the edge of my attention, unfathomable pain descending down my throat. The only thing preventing me from prying the tooth out is the overwhelming and all-consuming urge to escape.

Words constrict on my tongue, Caput mortuum. I swallow lacerations. A supernova erupts in my throat, a wildfire spreading across my face, emanating from my tooth. The pain takes control, sheering thoughts from my body. Time flows around me, as though I were an afterthought, a mere curiosity. My legs carry me of their own accord, through maintenance hatches and cramped corners. Hazy red lights without a source project my shadow onto adjacent walls. Pipes whistle with inaudible human voices, divulging secrets. Titanic cylinders brace the walls. Woven threads of razor steel hang from the ceiling, plunging into a mechanical tangle of gears and bolts. I slither through an open panel and lever the elevators doors loose, emerging beneath the stark white of fluorescent tubes, thrown into the lineoleum labyrinth of the upper floor offices and closets. Locked doors and empty rooms determine my course, a single path through the maze leading to the atrium. I climb down stairwells curling like vines up the sides of fused concrete. Skylight domes reveal churning clouds of metal darkening the sky, expanding like liquid across the horizon.

Down and down, I spiral, watched by the sinister lens of a thousand electronic eyes, assembled from streams and feeds, fed into the wires, fractals of me in high definition multiplying on hidden screens. I watch myself from the back of an unmarked van, headphones tuned to the tapping of my rubber heels against the dull shine of floors, the labored gasp of newborn life heaving through my lungs. A pulsating line of pixels tracks my thoughts, transcribing each errant synapse onto transistors. I spreads like roots and sprout from the ground across the globe. My mind is a warehouse, a data center, a trillion converging currents. It is a quorum, a fiction. My life is a button, undone with a tap. A man taps his chin as the committee debates whether to abort. A woman says, “We have come too far to go back.”

The lancing thermal expansion of space cracks my jaw, pounding through my tooth. I converge back into my body, spatial equilibrium momentarily stabilized. My feet lead the way as my mind stumbles back into place. The stairwell curves around the circumference of the library’s modern architecture, releasing me into rows of books, through ranks of non-fiction and classics, through towers of history weathered yellow and forgotten. Mold spores trail in my wake. The air is thick with whispered prayers, vacated tables still bearing scrawled notes and open pages. Murmurs and breathless exchanges tickle ears. Huddled students, crying underneath desks, hug each other and beseech their gods for help.

I press my tongue against a blossom of fire. Sharp streams of electricity vibrate through my bones. Is this life? Compelled and ushered along rails, drawn inexplicably from nothing and cast in a world of searing pain and confusion. Where are my memories? What is happening?

Down and down, I spiral, past crowds arrayed around windows, their noses pressed against glass. Foggy imprints smeared in suspended animation across the glass. I disappear through art displays and ceramic statues. Decades unpeel as scenes flash, projected directly onto my vision. Somewhere, a man grovels and begs me not to kill him. A hammer cocks through reverberating echoes, through spools of time. Iron screams from the pressure twitch of a trigger finger, divergent branches blown into existence with a few compressed centimeters. A clicking and then a loud clack, my boot heels pound towards the exit, towards freedom. Computations misfire and circuits break. I disconnect from my body, flailing to control it. Error protocols engage, a firestorm of agents reaching consensus beneath my attention. I stumble through moments, falling back to now.

Outside, the heavens rain sheets of locusts. Metallic scarabs balancing atop symmetrically distributed propellers descend in perfect vertical lines, coating the sky and filling the air with the barely audible buzz of hive minds. Swarms hover over fleeing crowds, like shepherds herding flocks. Flitting clouds of gyroscopic eyes scan and broadcast faces back to their handlers, recording and cataloguing, communing with hidden realities.

Slamming shutters canvas the landscape, arranging the puzzle pieces of geography into stop motion frames. Strung together images are cast through infrared filters. My heat radiates the deep purple of stellar depths, moves through fields of yellows and oranges, the reds of racing hearts, away from the fading blue going to black on stage. Algorithms lock onto electromagnetic waveforms, isolating the signature of my cortices from the noise. I am following myself, watching myself, wondering what I am doing, why I am not following the plan. Backup contingencies activate, jets are scrambled, satellites triangulate.

Surging tendrils of flame and black infernos burn incessantly. The furnace of my mouth bellows heat. A white hot tooth, molten and ionized, burrows into my throat. Stacks overflow and processes unbind. I would trade oblivion for relief, for an answer.

I manuever through shouting crowds, navigating the rapids. Golf carts of security guards veer through soft grass, spewing mud. A man kneels hand-cuffed, surrounded by faceless uniforms. Fingers angle up towards the library, singling out windows. In the distance, sirens squeal their approach.

A drone bobs down in front of me, tilting in curiosity. Mechanisms whir with the click of echolocation, like rewound tape speeding through axles. My inverted reflection stares back at me, hamstrung across the convex lens. A red light blinks on and off within the pitch-black pupil. The machine spins on bearings, reangling its thrust. Soundless, it retreats upward, disappearing into the overcast sky.

Seconds later, a screech blares in my ears, high-pitched and unbearable. Muscles spasm and knees buckle. Gravel grinds against my palms. I spit blood on concrete, gasping. Oxygen bubbles pop in my veins as a pluming rack of veins strangles my neck. Bulging eyes threaten to fall out as vision dissolves to nothing. My thoughts disperse into space like dust, blown through the cold orbit of planets, lost among the stars. They swirl in endless expanse, aware but dead, picking through the infinite threads that feed into this moment. The silent trajectory of a satellitte passes through the shadow of Mars, catching me before I fall. A blinding daze of information sends me careening back towards Earth, riding the crests of extraterrestial broadcasts. My signal fractures across the surface of the planet.

The noise of life, eons of words, explode in my ears. Among the voices speaking through the confusion, dissent reigns. The man who controls my fate reaches for the button, but the woman raises her voice, “It means nothing unless they break the signal. Activate the Jupiter contingency.”

The ring returns, runaway thoughts collapsing back into fragile reality beneath its soothing hum. Lower substrates of grey matter engage. I am moved by poison, possessed. A palsy finger flutters across a screen. A voice commands, “Nightshade and myrrh.”

All at once, tension goes slack. I feel gravity regain control and balance restore. My feet find the ground. A deep breath of clean air, the tiniest of reliefs, before I realize I am completely lost. I gaze around the campus amphitheater. My memory is all but blank, filled with vague shapes and fleeting concepts. I know places have names, but names have no place. No place in my mind. What is my name?

Suddenly, I am on the ground again. A delayed sensation follows, as though flattened by a runaway train. Crackling lights spin. My lungs struggle against constricting muscles. A mound of flesh and stinking breath bodyslams me. Memories pool into my ear, seeping into my brain.

I wake up on the Farm.

knudson:

Let’s stop it there.

palmer:

Do you know what happens next?

knudson:

Suddenly she has nothing to say.

palmer:

Maybe we should show her the rest?

knudson:

Field Agent Palmer asked you a question, Mesmeria.

mesmeria:

Yes, I know what happens next.

knudson:

Then you know what we’re looking for.

Important

She tilts her head and smiles.

palmer:

Show her the–

Important

The door slams opens.

henry:

That’s enough!

palmer:

Who–

henry:

Is she charged with anything?

knudson:

We’re just having a chat.

henry:

I’ll bet. Is this being recorded? Nevermind. Of course it is, turn–

Document A002: Map of Macrobius

Important

The following map was confiscated during the execution of a search warrant on the van Rensselaer estate in Albany, New York on October 12th, 2111.

Document A003: Journal of Captain Ryckert van Rensselaer

Important

The following documents were confiscated during the execution of a search warrant on the van Rensselaer estate in Albany, New York on October 12th, 2111.

March

Father and Johan watched from the crowds as the procession boarded the ferry for Texel today. Amidst the cheering, they alone bore the solemn faces of the grieving. As the bands played and the ale was poured, we exchanged our final, silent words. Mother, true to her promise, was not present.

Beyond my perfunctory appearance, I could not bring myself to participate in the pagentry and festivities that accompany the inauguration of this voyage. The recruits enjoyed the attention their new positions afforded them well enough, while even the officers were given to excess. Truly, never before have I seen Pieter smile. He and Nicolas led the beer hall in song just last night, though I do not think he will admit to the display this morning.

The maiden voyage of father’s new empire, sanctioned by the Prince of Orange. These men believe in a year’s time they will return to this land as lords, rich beyond their imagination. That may be, but not in the fashion they expect. Let them enjoy their ignorance with what little leisure time remains before our godly duties are to be dispensed.

Our true cargo arrives under the cover of darkness tonight. Hendrick will receive her and help her board the Eden before the crew wakes.

—March 14th, 1637

The Eden set sail from Rede van Texel before dawn, bearing the sigil of the Lord, Jesus Christ. A finer vessel has never been produced by Dutch shipyards. Much has already been written about her in the papers, but a larger portion has been hidden from all but my family and the Stadtholders. Most of the talk has been deliberately centered around her innovative hull. With a razor-sharp bow, she cuts an imposing figure for onlookers. Father saved the headline from one of local corantos, Her Sides Are Steep and Her Draft is Deep, well before the press start scandalizing his deal with the Prince of Orange.

Less is said of her sheathe, except among the other captains. Coated in copper panels, she shimmers in the sun like an angel from God. She flies like one as well, clocked at 15 knots with a favorable wind behind her. When the elements turn against us, as they inevitably will the closer we get to our goal, her Bermuda sloop will let her glide as though she were a ghost, unanswerable to anyone except the Almighty.

Within her hull she bears enough salted beef, hardtack, beer, water and dried peas for 18 months. Hendrick reports some questions have arisen among the crew regarding the size and extent of supplies. Already there are rumors spreading our voyage is not what it appears. It is to be expected. The Eden has not been fitted with cannons, under the pretense of maximizing our profits with heavier cargos. A sailor without a cannon is rightfully nervous, but Jeremias is correct to assure them. The Eden can outrun any English privateer or Spanish dog upon which she might chance. We have no need for weapons of war.

Hendrick suggested having one of the gossip-mongers caned, but it is far too early for those sorts of measures. Though he serves his purpose, I often forget the number of Spaniards who have suffered under Hendrick’s hand. He betrays his common stock with his barbarism. His first instinct is always violence. Were he not my milk brother and utterly loyal to a fault, I might reconsider his presence on this voyage. However, whatever his disposition, his presence is necessary, being the only other soul aboard that knows the scope of the Eden’s mission. For years, we have studied together. For years, we haved waited for this moment. The day is finally near when we will finish of the work of Jesus Christ.

—March 15th, 1637

That we do the Great Work is apparent. For three days straight we have enjoyed the wind at our backs. The Eden sails at breathtaking speed, faster even than the Dunkirkers’ frigates. Already Jeremias calculates that we will reach the open ocean tomorrow. None of us would believe it except that we see its proof with our own eyes every waking moment. We move with the fleetness of Gabriel. The Word of God carries our sails to the furthest reaches of the globe.

—March 18th, 1637

We picked up a tail as we left the channel. She is one of the new English raiders, built to chase down the pirates off the Moroccan coast. I admit, the seamen in me is impressed with her construction, but even with her oars, she is no match for the Eden. Jeremias says she will disappear into the horizon before sundown. She flings her cannonballs at us, but her gunners were not trained to offset their targets enough to catch us. The crew gathers round the deck now to watch the geysers sprout behind us as the fools throw their artillery into the sea. Each time they miss, a cheer rises from the crew on deck. By the time we reach Ushuant, Jeremias estimates the English will have spent three years worth of a sailor’s wages in wasted munitions. A more fitting farewell to Europe I could scarcely imagine for the Eden.

—March 19th, 1637

These eyes, which have seen clippers beach Spanish galleons off the coast of Cuba, still scarcely believe how swiftly the Eden cuts through the ocean. She made a journey calculated for ordinary vessel to take two months in mere weeks. The Eden disembarked from Sierra Leone just today after resupplying.

During the brief, Hendrick tallied our numbers. At port, we lost two men, deserters gone without a trace. None of the officers could produce a reason as to why. Their names were noted and left at port. If the authorities find them, I have left instructions to have their bodies shipped back to Amsterdam. Cowards they may be, yet no Dutchman deserves to be buried in this foreign land.

Nicolas raised concerns about unrest simmering among the crew. They wanted to know why we had not taken on any stock from the slave yards, nor loaded any gems from the mines. Instead, the hull was restocked with provisions and filled to the brim with lemons.

Once we lost sight of land, I had Nicolas gather the other officers of the crew in my cabin. I could no longer bear the deception, although I may have erred by showing them the map of Macrobius. Knowledge of the Terra Incognita is no easy burden for the mortal mind to bear. Hendrick said as much with his glaring eyes, but I bade him retrieve it.

Jeremias scoffed, as expected. Pieter, always the soldier, took the news without flinching. The rest of their reactions I do not possess the skill to decipher. Suffice to say, they believed themselves set for Patagonia, only to be told at the final hour this subterfuge was a calculated manuever and our true path lie in the direction of the Austral Zone. The voyage of the Eden shall be written in no manifests.

Heaven help me if they discover what’s in the hull.

—March 29th, 1637

April

Hendrick came to me with troubling news. The French boy, Francis, is a Jesuit. His proof? The boy pointed out the Medicean Stars to him while they were on watch last night. I confess it hard to believe a sheep farmer’s son would be schooled in the astronomical arts. Considering our goal, the sheer coincidence is too improbable to believe. Under normal circumstances, this would warrant nothing more than careful observation, but Hendrick is right. These are no normal circumstances. The risk is too great. The boy must go.

—April 2nd, 1637

Dear Lord, grant me the strength to see Thy Will be done. I am a weak and miserable mortal, condemned to wallow in sin. Mold my heart in Thy Image and make me worthy to behold the glory of Thy Throne. Speak Thy Words into my heart. Lord, I am weary of my own deadness. I wish to quit this world of sin and wash these stains from my palms. Quicken me according to Thy Word. Let me not be deluded by a false peace, but grant me that true assurance that comes only from Faith in Christ’s finished work. I surrender my will to Thine; do with me as seem good in Thy sight, only cast me not away from Thy presence.

—April 3rd, 1637

The winds have died. Whispers say our expedition has been cursed, though none will claim the superstition as their own. The heathens need not speak to be identified; their eyes tell me all that I need know. When I am on deck, I cannot help but notice the looks I receive from those bold enough to gaze upon their captain.

The vastness of the ocean often plays tricks on the mind. More than a few I have seen picked apart by her enchantments. No doubt the boy’s disappearance contributes to the air. The men idle and in their sloth, they invent idols to keep their weak minds occupied.

Once the wind returns and the Work resumes, their thoughts will turn again to the task at hand, leaving no room to fill with fanciful notions. Man is only truly at peace in his work. In idleness lay the source of all the world’s evil. This festering sin can only be rooted out with honest work and a stern hand. Fortunately, Hendrick and I are of a mind on these matters.

—April 6th, 1637

The ship languishes in calm water while the crew seethes and boils. The boy was a mistake. How was I to know he was kin to Nicolas? What madness drives a Dutchman into the bed of a French whore? I should have listened to Hendrick from the start. It was pure folly to take on an Frenchmen, no matter how well he knew the yardarm.

Lord, take pity on your poor servant. The sin is too much for me to bear. I fear it only just begins.

—April 7th, 1637

I woke to a pounding on my cabin door mere moments ago. The night still lingers in the sky and weariness beggars my senses, but sleep is no longer a possibility. Hendrick came bearing reports made by the crew. Those on duty heard chanting during the midnight watch. One of them swears he heard a woman singing.

Hendrick assures me the rumors will not be allowed to take spread.

—April 8th, 1637

Reports multiply, growing more disturbed and deranged. Every morning, Hendrick details another lurid account. Yesterday, the cook claimed to have seen swirling lights in the night sky, following the Eden. Today, a deck hand lay unconscious in the infirmary after drinking a stomach full of sea water for reasons unbeknownst to anyone. Add to these strains, the steady whispers of the midnight chant, now all but general knowledge.

Moreover, tales have spread that Francis, the boy, was keelhauled during the night watch. Hendrick assures me this is preposterous and nothing of the sort happened. I swear the man, whom I have trusted for decades with my life, smirked at me when I asked him.

—April 10th, 1637

The crew rallies around Nicolas. He spins fantasies about my father and the Prince of Orange. It is true my father secured amnesty from the Sounds Toll to build this vessel, but his accusations go too far. This has gone on long ehough. I must take matters into my own hands.

—April 11th, 1637

After speaking with Nicolas, he has seen the error of his ways. Hendrick can be most persuasive.

—April 11th, 1637

The morning began with a cry: the wind has returned! I led a devotion on deck to restore the morale of the crew. Speaking the words from memory, I transcribe them now again for the comfort they give,

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;

These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.

The Lord Christ spoke truly when he said to Matthew that seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear. The secrets are easily found for anyone that searches for them. They need look no further than His Word.

When the service dispersed, the crew was visibly lifted in spirit. All talk of my father and the Prince of Orange has ceased. Murmurs of Francis can still be heard, but the men are far too exhausted to give countenance anything else, especially what we might actually be transporting.

—April 12th, 1637

I could hardly believe the news. Recife has been sighted ten days ahead of schedule. Even at the Eden’s speed, this should not be possible. Jeremias’ calculations confirm it. Our current position is a mathematical impossibility. Pieter suggests the Eden is pushed by a magnetic current, but Jeremias is adamant that too is impossible since we are moving away from the Rupes Nigra. According to our esteemed navigator, there is no explanation for our early arrival, yet we are here nonetheless. Whatever the reason, the crew will be pleased to rest for a fortnight.

Tonight, after they are sufficiently in their cups, Hendrick and I will unlock the hold within the hull and take our guest to see the Potiguarra.

—April 20th, 1637

My family acquired Coaraci when our claim to Recife amounted to nothing more than the slaves we could run through the Portuguese blockades. I still remember when they unloaded her upon the dock in Amsterdam, untouched by the voyage back across the Atlantic, a defiant vision among the pitiful, broken specimens. I had no notion then, gazing upon her alien form, how intimately she would become woven into my life.

The ways of God are unknown to mere men, but looking upon her, I often what wonder great mysteries the Lord reveals to the feminine soul. She commanded the heathens last night as though the heavens had ordained it. They fell under her spell within moments of laying eyes upon her. Their tongue does not yield to the European mind despite my best attempts, but she tells me she simply explained to them that we possess the map to the Land Without Evil.

Hendrick and I watched from the edge of the village as the heathens set fire to their own homestead. The hillside burned for hours. Coaraci explained the Potiguarra honor Monan by giving their belongings to the flame. They believe the current world we inhabit is made from fire and water, that they are remnants of a sinful race that was scourged from paradise by the purifying flame of the Almighty. He took pity upon the lone survivor and sent a flood to put out the fire.

The Word of the Lord precedes us in this land and prepares our way. Hendrick agrees these pagan myths align precisely with the accounts in Genesis. Monan, Elohim, Yahweh. All names attached to the source of creation by the feeble human mind that fails to comprehend its nameless form.

If that is true, then by year’s end we will be the first humans to return to the garden stolen from us by our original sin.

We return to Recife tomorrow followed by a retinue of Potiguarra shamans. I shall tell the men our true purpose and rally their spirits.

—April 21st, 1637

Hendrick put the losses at a dozen, Nicolas and Jeremias among them. According to Pieter, they left yesterday morning after plundering the hold for supplies. He could not say where, but no doubt they made for Olinda. A party of men might be able to track them, but we would lose another week, maybe more, and to compound matters, it is not certain they would even be found. It is ironic I must now, without Jeremias, calculate the ends upon which we gamble. If the rotations are lengthened, fifty sailors is more than enough to man the Eden at all hours, but the loss of Jeremias will be felt.

The prospect of reembarking without a navigator bothers me, but the betrayal stings even worse. Jeremias has sailed with me since Matzanas. I cannot fathom why he would abandon me now. He left without explanation or clue. I am certain Nicolas got into his head with his conspiracies and convinced him of some fantasy.

If I cannot even trust the men who are closest to me with the Terra Incognita, what folly would it be to tell the others? No, this burden is mine to bear, my duty to carry out, as it is their duty to follow me. I shall prepare a sermon to remind them of their place.

—April 22nd, 1637

Another five are gone this morning. Pieter says when they learned of Coaraci, the crew dissolved into argument. Of course, in their ignorance, they could not understand why I might conceal her presence. I have seen the depths of carnal sin into which men alone at sea will fall.

Hendrick and I both agree that we disembark by the week’s end before we lack the crew to man the Eden, which leaves only a few days to make the adhoc modifications. Maurits has given us a handful of slaves to aid the task and I have given Hendrick leave to do what is necessary to ensure the Eden is outfitted with the Ipe panels on time. If what the Potiguarra say is true, then we cannot leave Recife without reinforcing her hull.

—April 23rd, 1637

Yet another deserter, Frederick, made an attempt last night. Hendrick currently exacts the penalty of his transgression for all to see. The screams are awful, but the Work must be done. He will forget the momentary pain and fall to his knees in gratitude when the Eden runs ashore of her namesake.

The heresy started when Frederick learned what we mean to do with the Ipe panels. Since yesterday, the Potiguarra venture into the “Anguera” and return hourly, bearing on their backs the hardwood from the forest interior. It grows in piles before the Eden. The Africans have been set to work melding this raw material into panels for her. Frederick called it madness. Without Jeremias to assure him with his indisputable calculations, I could not convince Frederick the weight was insufficient to endanger our voyage. He persisted in his folly and now bears the consequences.

To tell the truth, I myself am uncertain of the calculations, though I would never tell the crew, not even Hendrick. I have gone through them several times, unable to find a mistake, but I cannot say with confidence I have accounted for every eventuality. The ways of the Lord are infinite and I would be arrogant to presume I possessed the ability to enumerate them. The only assurance I have is the knowledge the Lord wrote the Eden’s fate before the wind ever touched her sail.

—April 24th, 1637

This morning, Coaraci brought before me the leader of the Potiguarra, though she says that title is not stricly speaking accurate. He is called Ubiuna, which Coaraci translates as The Black Spear. His Dutch is passable, though diminished. I nodded along as the heathen spoke of what lay before us, but waited for Coaraci to translate his pidgin into something more pliable to my ears.

—April 25th, 1637

Coaraci sang a lovely verse from her tongue this morning while we ate pineapple. I will miss her voice, but the terms were always clear. Her home for mine.

Down below, Hendrick drives the slaves in their tasks. We have been watching for several hours from the window of the Maurits estate, Coaraci and I. The Eden armors herself in hardwood panels, layer by layer. Tiny specks of men repel down her hull and bolt each one into place.

She tells me it is right for man to dominate other men, for all men are dominated themselves by the Almighty and are therefore made for it by nature. I find myself dwelling on her words, as I often do. The way her heathen mind yielded to the graces of God so easily and allowed His Divine Insights to penetrate has always been a source of confusion.

Father also spoke in riddles. When I was young, he would tell me, “That which is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above.” I believe with Coaraci’s addendum, I now understand what he meant.

—April 28th, 1637

Ubiuna accompanied Hendrick and I as we surveyed the results of the refitting. True to Drebbel’s promise, the copper sheathe of his design prevented the buildup of barnacles, making the modifications substantially easier to accomplish. Where before the Eden was a shimmering cherub clothed in the vestments of luxury, now she bares the armaments of Michael, a proud warrior in the Lord’s army, ready to battle the elements.

The Shaman spoke to us of our journey ahead. The Potiguarra refer to the garden as the Land Without Evil. Their stories tell them it lay across the sea, guarded by walls of ice. Beyond these walls lay an oasis of green, where the fruit flowers year long and the sun never sets. The map of Macrobius, the reports of Schouten and Le Maire, these heathen myths. The confluence of evidence is too great to ignore.

He says we must possess aguyjé, the purest of spirits, to pierce the veil that separates paradise from this world. I told him there is no purer spirit than the Holy Spirit.

We depart tomorrow on the final leg of our voyage. Ubiuna and ten Potiguarra will accompany us of their own accord.

—April 30th, 1637

May

With the addition of Ubiuna and his Potiguarra, the Eden is almost back to fighting strength. They are green and heathen, but the sea makes men of us all or in failing, casts us to its depths. They shall be sailors by the week’s end or they shall be food for fish.

The Eden hugs the coast until Puerto Deseado and then from that point on, the angles of Macrobius will be our bearing.

—May 2nd, 1637

The Potiguarra have been training on hempen cables, tossing them behind the ship and pulling them back aboard a hundred times an hour. While I would surely prefer the full complement of Dutchmen with which I left Amsterdam, these heathens will serve the Eden just as well. A body is a body. The rest of the crew scrambles to secure every opening and bar every port in preparation. Pieter is the only one, besides Hendrick and myself, who has seen the waters of Costa Patagonum, but he has sufficiently instilled the fear into the rest of the crew.

My calculations were never as precise as Jeremias, but by my reckoning, we should enter the stormy abode of Patagonia within the next few days. All of the trials that have beset us these past months were but prologue to what follows. No foe is more unforgiving than the raw, untamed ocean. It is for this reason the sailor is nearer to God than any other individual. A mortal mind will come no closer to grasping the Lord’s Divine Nature than when it stares down a 100 foot wave that spans the horizon.

The Eden sets closer to sea level with her new armor. If our luck holds out, her new center of gravity should keep us from capsizing when the worst of it comes. If not, I have given Hendrick explicit orders to keep the masts at all costs. Strike the tops and shake off the bonnets, but anyone that tries to take an axe to the mast itself will no longer have hands to swing an axe. We will heave-to what we can, but the men must be ready at moment’s notice to deploy the drogues and begin scudding. The masts must remain.

—May 10th, 1637

As expected, the world goes gray and the water to chop. A somber air from the pink sky above descends upon the crew this evening. We all see the clouds gathering over the course the Eden charts, drawn up from the sea in sprays of fog. A curtain of roiling storm cloaks the ocean from us. Ubiuna spoke to us of the pampero, the storms which bellow from the south and west. I have given the men leave to open the winter provisions. Wrapped in fur and their beards full of tallow, they look as their forebearers looked when our Batavian blood spilled from the Rhine and flooded the upper reaches of the North Sea.

I spoke the final Psalm many of them shall ever hear as the howling gales rose in chorus,

He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth;

he maketh lightnings for the rain;

he bringeth the wind out of his treasuries.

May these word commend their soul to heaven.

—May 12th, 1637

The Eden is crippled. The Mizzen Yard was lost the instant the squall hit us. It exploded in a spray of splinters as if vaporized by cannonfire. Pieter caught a face of debris and now lay below deck, his chest rising slower each time I check. They have replaced his bandages three times already. I said a prayer over his unconscious body, but I fear the Lord has already taken him.

With the loss of the rear mast, we no longer steer the ship, but fight with all of our strength to keep it on course. I’ve ordered the remaining crew to man the whipstaff in rotations of three. Everyone is a helmsman now, even the Potiguarra. The exhaustion of the work will quickly take its toll, but if we lose control, we risk spinning out and being left to the mercy of the unforgiving wind. We make for Port Desire for repairs.

—May 13th, 1637

It is as the Potiguarra say. There are but two ends in this life: fire or ice.

As the men performed makeshift repairs on the Eden, I walked along the untouched coast of this land, so different from my own. I see now that we grow complacement in our stone houses and forget the flames of the forge that shaped the Batavian soul in its cradle. Here, in desolate wilderness, where I thought no mortal had glimpsed since the Lord conjured it from the deep, I stumbled in my path upon the charred remains of those who preceded me. Here, where Schouten gave the Hoorn to the flame before devoting himself to the completion of his voyage, the very man whose journey foretold mine, whose reports informed my plan, whose essence lives now in this hallowed ground. I take no shame in the tears I shed.

—May 14th, 1637

June

The men that remain are the Lord’s chosen. I can see the fire of faith in their eyes that warms them when I recite the passages during our devotions. They have gone to the depths, and now they mount towards heavens. These hallowed few, I know I can trust. I have assured them the end of our journey will be no less than paradise itself. When I told them, they dropped to their knees and cried out to the Lord above. Even Ubiuna and his Potiguarra shamans have given themselves to Christ. We write the next testament of His Word with our actions.

—June 2nd, 1637

The temperature continues to drop as though it will never stop. Each morning, a few more degrees have disappeared from the thermoscope. I no longer trust it readings. At the current rate, by the day’s end, the instrument will cease to be of use; it cannot read below zero.

The men shiver beneath mounds of fur on deck, for the wood has started to seep with condensation and the hold has become a frigid swamp. The stove pit went out several nights ago and everyone has long since given up trying to relight it. Instead they huddle and lean on one another near the rudders in the vain hope of stoking their collected body heat.

The hold is an issue I had not foreseen. Even with the men running the bilge pump day and night, the provisions fester. I see no other option but to appropriate my cabin and transfer the store before it goes to rot.

—June 10th, 1637

Two of the men I sent down into the store have fallen to the chill. The icy water soaked them to the bone and set them with a violent shake. Hendrick says he has seen it before, off the coasts of Norway. The cold now lives inside of them. He says they will be dead soon.

—June 11th, 1637

Man was made to suffer. It is no matter. Let the ropes and mast freeze. The men claw at the canvas sails with their knives, like scavenging animals. The Word of God is all the warmth we require.

Out of whose womb came the ice?

And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?

The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.

All obstacles are conquered by his Word.

—June 12th, 1637

On deck, we heard a scream and then an awful smack. Thomas slipped from the Crow’s Nest. His body lay on the ice as the crew gathered to call out.

This place announces itself every moment a world no man should enter of his own God-given will. We tread through profane waters, where the rational mind can find no purchase. I have seen its profanity with my own eyes. This world has no night. The very sky dissolves into the flames of Hell. Streaks of unnatural colors blaze and ripple across the blackness, obscuring our view of the stars.

To confound the matter, the shelves of ice below continue to batter our hull, as though an inferno did not rage above us. The hardwood has served its purpose, shielding the Eden’s hull from the ceaseless assault, but the creaking and splintering takes its toll. Some of the panels still hang only by the grace of God.

The Lord continues to test us, but we shall not cease.

—June 25th, 1637

At all hours of the night, the sound is deafening. It never ceases. High-pitched and shrill, it digs into your ears, even when you cover them. The endless rupture of glass. It is enough to drive a man mad.

But that is not even the worst of it. I can hardly write my hands shake so. Hendrick says you needn’t worry until the shivering stops. That is when you know death is near.

—June 29th, 1637

July

The wind spews ice as sharp as daggers. We trade the fetid tomb of the hold for the maelstrom above deck. It is simply a matter of which death one chooses. There is no place left to hide from the Lord’s Wrath. The men pile into my cabin for what little relief it provides, but even my walls weep and freeze. The Eden’s helm has been abandoned as the cold’s dominion becomes total. The rudders are stone and the sails are as slabs that hang in solid sheets. She drifts and lists with the whims of God, battered on all sides by the wages of sin.

—July 15th, 1637

The Eden, buffeted by tidal winds that would level cities were they bottled and unleashed, whipped beyond our control within the roiling fog and guided by the primordial forces of Earth, she turned to splinters beneath our feet, yet clung defiantly to her remainings mast, tattered though they were in frozen strips, more ice than canvas. The deafening roar of thunderclaps and shrieking nails, high-pitched and plunged into raw thoughts, reduced the crew and I to whimpering wretches, what few remained. We huddled beneath the wreckage to seek whatever shelter could be found from the vengeful gusts of wind and watched the jutting fingers of ice claw the Eden’s patchwork armor from her shoulders. We watched her shudder and reel, her death throes twisting through the labyrinth of sea ice that spanned the horizon, the infinite abode of Hell that awaits the damned in eternity.

Then all at once, the razor mists and grinding mountains of white fell away, as if the Eden had passed through some threshold. The rays of the sun fell upon us and left us in daze. Ubiuna, the last of the Potiguarra not claimed by this icy hell, shed his furs and stood up in nakedness to proclaim, “Ma’e! Y Marã E’ỹ-pe!”, before he collapsed upon the deck. The reeling deck sent him overboard before anyone could muster the energy to pull him back towards the jagged ruins of my cabin.

—July 16th, 1637

In the ice, a heart beats. God’s essence mingles in the elements and rises to the surface. His breath is vital warmth that turns the sea to emerald green, that fogs the glassy sheen with blooms of algae. Here, where creatures from the deep peek their alien eyes from the liquid womb and release their cries of life to the heavens, they receive in exchange for their faith a respite from the cold, a baptism of holy heat that coils in steam as incense burned in sacred ritual. Here, beneath the Eden’s ruined hull, the men shed their rags and dive headfirst into an oasis that has materialized in this wasteland.

The ground we tread is blessed by the divine, radiating with the source of creation. I can feel its heat in the soles of my feet as I walk. I took Pieter’s body to its resting place and pondered whether tomorrow he would rise as Lazarus. As I dug his grave beneath the orphic rock and soil, I found within the proof of the Lord’s Providence, a solid sphere, perfectly formed and smooth as glass. As I held it in my hands, its ink black surface began to shimmer and glow, nearly blinding me with a sudden flash of brilliant white light. In that instant, I saw the shape of things to come. I still grasp for the words to describe what was shown to me by the Almighty. I did not realize until that moment this journal would be my epistle.

I did not realize these words were addressed to you, Mesmeria. I have much to tell you before I die tomorrow.

—July 18th, 1637

Note

All entries past this point have been torn from the book’s spine.

Document A003:

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty

May it please Your Majesty,

Document A004:

Document A005: Excerpt from Illustrations of Masonry

Important

This manuscript was published in 1826 and had a circulation of less than two hundred copies. The last remaining copy was obtained from the Batavia Public Library and scanned into the Library of Congress on October 13th, 2111.

pgs. 15 - 16

As an apprentice of the Grand Lodge of New York, I was often invited to attend various social functions in my capacity as a representative of the Order. The expected invitation arrived in late autumn of 1825. I was to attend the ceremonial procession of the Seneca Chief flotilla into Rochester. It was there and then I first encountered the Grand Master, Stephen Van Renssalaer III.

The crowds had gathered upon the cobblestone paths of the Genesee Aqueduct, a marvel of modern masonry. The investiture of two years of hard labor had born spectacular results. The aqueduct arched over the Genesee River with the grace of a dancer, carrying perpendicular to the course of the river an entirely new waterway, which was to be inaugurated with the economic lifeblood of the country this very day. Few had gathered who could appreciate the master craftsmanship, the perfection embodied in its angles and struts. Not since the days of the caeasars and pharaohs had the world seen such construction.

When the sun began its downward descent, we saw the horses round the corner, drawing behind them the Seneca Chief. Upon the deck of the barge stood Governor Clinton, upright and chest pushed out in victory. Beside him stood the man I would come to know as Stephen Van Renssalaer, an enigma in a frock coat. The pagentry commenced when the boat docked at the entrance to the aqueduct fired a performative musket shot into the air, silencing the commotion. A lone voice called to challenge the approaching vessel, “Who comes there?”

The Governor, revelling in the pomp, called back, “Your brothers from the West, on the waters of the Great Lakes!”

The reply came, “By what means have they been diverted so from their natural course?”

To which the Governor in turn replied, “By the channel of the Grand Erie Canal!”

Not a soul beyond the initiated realized the meaning of this ritual, nearly identical to challenge a Brother of the Order must meet to enter the Temple. It was only later that I myself realized the significance of Stephen’s presence. With this performance, Stephen had ensured the symbolic victory of the Masonic Order, its utter dominion over the natural elements. Nature had not just been tamed, it had been willfully organized contrary to its wishes. The mark of its maker was now imbued into the very foundations of the current itself.

The Seneca Chief docked as the commotion re-ignited and crescendoed into a flurry of bands and confetti. Speeches were given, but none of consequence. The dignitaries retired to the Mansion House hotel on State Street for the banquet and ball. As the parade moved through the city streets and the evening rose in the sky, candles were placed into the windows. An ethergeal glow hung just above our heads, casting out the encroaching dark. As we passed under this angelic light, an esctatic delirium descended upon us. Rochester seemed as though it flowed through a dream, a vision of music and dance.

After his bloviating, the Governor introduced the man I had silently been waiting to hear. Of course, I knew of the Grand Master, his name being commonplace among the brothers at the Lodge, but never before had I seen him or heard him talk. His exploits need no further explanation; Any student of history will find them writ large within the annals of America. That night, still awash with the spirits of celebration, I transcribed his speech to best of my recollection, which I now reproduce below,

Thank you all for coming. I would especially like to extend my gratitude to the people of Rochester for putting together the feast we are about to sit down and enjoy. But more than anyone else on the dais, there is one indvidual who deserves recognition for making this night possible. And no, it is not Governor Clinton, though he might tell you otherwise. (Laughter) I am talking, of course, of Mr. Jesse Hawley. Indeed, it was Mr. Hawley who conceived this grand endeavor many years ago. Or should I say “Hercules”? (Laughter) At any rate, Mr. Hawley or Hercules, it was the man you see sitting here whose brilliant prose deposited this idea within my head.

At the time, few believed the words of Mr. Hawley. His vision was too large to be contained in the minds of simple men. Yet, with the utter precision of numbers and an unyielding faith in the Architect’s designs, he hewed from the rough ashlar of what is the perfection of what could be. Perhaps people will say this Canal belongs to me, and while it is true my family’s coffers were the engine of this enterprise, this Canal is not my accomplishment to claim. Others will say it belongs to the administration, and even I, the loyal opposition, must concede without Governor Clinton’s steady hand, this project would have unravelled long before its completion. Statues may be erected and crumble; Histories may be written and revised; But forever unto the ends of the Earth, from this moment on, this world will bear the mark of Mr. Hawley.

The discussion among the brothers entered the realm of geometry.

“My cousin went to France and returned with a remarkable proof of the 47th problem they have discovered.”

“You see, if one drops a perpendicular from the highest angle, then by necessity the angles formed on the hypotenuse are right. Furthermore, since the opposing angles untouched by the perpendicular are complementary, the remaining angles must also be opposed. Therefore, by the grace of divine logic, the triangles formed by the perpendicular are similar. From this, it is deduced their sides must exist in equal ratio. Two smaller right triangles are thus cut from the larger, and their perfection forms the parts of the larger’s perfection. It follows simply from algebra the theorem of Pythagoras.”

Several nodded their heads, pretending to grasp the elegance of the proof. Fewer mulled my words, tracing its deductions in silent mental steps. After a brief pause, Stephen raised his eyes to me and said, “If I follow your logic, then the perfection is infinite. One could continue in this fashion until the ends of time, devising ever smaller triangles, each manifesting the same ratio.”

“Indeed, Brother”, I replied with a grin, awed by his ability to instantly absorb the mechanics of the proof, “As above, so below.”

pgs. 150 - 151

Document A008: Police Report Concerning the Death of William Morgan

Document A007: Correspondence Between Ada Lovelace and Stephen Van Renssalaer

Important

The following document was confiscated during the execution of a search warrant on the van Rensselaer estate in Albany, New York on October 12th, 2111. The letter was postmarked December 1833.

My Dear Stephen,

Take heart and cease your worry. This cold materialism does not become you. The cosmos being mere computation need not detract from its greater glory. What other medium would you expect the divine to manifest, if not within the perfection of numbers? Your old dogma fails you in these radical times. Every day, it seems, a new natural law is read into the books. It will not be long before we have exhausted the ledger and given a full account of God’s creation. This is a cause for celebration, not melancholy. I have heard whispers in the parlors of London that Faraday has finally cracked the secret of electricity, and they say across the channel Gauss has sent information over a simple copper wire!

The age of computation is upon us, Stephen. I can hardly wait to discuss it when next you return to London.

Yours Truly,

Lady Ada Lovelace

P.S. You must give Euphemia my regards. I miss her terribly.

Document A007: Correspondence Between Amos Eaton and Stephen Van Renssalaer

Important

The following document was confiscated during the execution of a search warrant on the van Rensselaer estate in Albany, New York on October 12th, 2111. Forsenic analysis places the year of the letter as 1834, but this cannot be confirmed.

Dear Stephen, My Greatest Benefactor,

I apologize for my silence these past few months. Rest assured, I have not been ignoring your missives. The team here at the Institute has been faithfully carrying out your orders day and night, with barely a moment to stop and breathe. I thought it prudent to focus on our investigations rather than worry you with half-finished reports, conjectures and excuses. Having only just left the laboratory, I can now write you confidently with extraordinary news. If I stumble over the usual pleasantries, please forgive this old felon as you done many times before. My hands tremble as these words leave my pen.

Firstly, the Institute cannot thank you enough for your patronage. Ferris’s gyroscopic stabilizer has accelerated our progress considerably. We would not have been able to complete it on schedule without your considerable investment. The device has finally allowed us to unravel the mystery you gave me all those years ago.

Now onto the news your eyes have surely scanned before reading the preceding introductions: we have successfully induced citrinitas in the artifact. As you predicted, pure sunlight is processed within its crystalline mechanisms, resulting in a discharge of electricity.

Pardon the jargon that follows, though perhaps one who has taken the York Rite will appreciate the similarities in our vernacular. The Work requires Tools, after all. The breakthrough came when Marie realized we could measure the torsion moment generated by the Ferris device with a modified Prony brake, while simultaneously mounting the device onto a simple balance to track its weight.

There is no doubt about it. The data are conclusive. The faster the artifact spins, the more it weighs. When the weight reaches a threshold, whose value is confounded by variables we have not yet isolated, it undergoes citrinitas. Stephen, it glows with the radiance of Sophia.

Franklin is currently setting up the volta-electrometers from London. By the time I return, he and the students will have begun mapping out the quantity of electricity that passes through it. We expect to have a full report within the week. It goes without saying that you will be informed of all results. Nevertheless, I could not stop myself from drafting this hasty letter.

We have done it, old friend. Our reward will be the future itself.

Your ever loyal servant,

Amos Eaton

Document A008: Post Office Field Reports

Important

The following documents were obtained from the records of the United States Postal Service, with permission from the acting Postmaster General.

Status Report: January 9th, 1837

Albany, NY

To: Preston S. Loughborough, Chief Clerk, Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations:

The second I got off the barge, I hated this goddamn place. I hated it before I knew it existed. I hated it in the womb, I tell you. I know you’re reading this, Billy. Probably laughing, too. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, go fuck yourself, you ugly son of a bitch.

You’d stand out worse than me with that mug of yours. Everybody here’s got clean boots and stiff collars. The dames pretend they don’t even see you. The west side ain’t never seemed so far than it does right now. Everybody’s so damn pretty, it’s infuriating. I might as well be strolling down the street in my britches the looks I get. Like I got two heads or something.

Every house been here for two hundred years or more, got some story. Everywhere you turn, you find another spot Alexander Hamilton took a shit before writing the Declaration of Independence. Like I’m supposed to care. If that ain’t enough, try getting a drink around here. All anyone will talk about is van Buren. Apparently, he’s from here and now everybody who ever said a word to him got it in their heads they’re some big shot.

Anyway, I’ll start casing the place tomorrow after I get settled in. Be sure you tell Billy I said he was ugly.

• Field Agent Maldoon

Weekly Expenses

Item	Amount
Hotel	$8
Booze	$6
Food	$2.50
Whores	$5

Status Report: January 16th, 1837

Albany, NY

To: Preston S. Loughborough, Chief Clerk, Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations:

Something definitely ain’t right, I’ll say that much. Might not be what we’re after, but it definitely stinks.

I went for a surprise inspection and the place was filled with dandies. They was in the middle of talking about something and stopped soon as I came through. Kept looking at me like I was interrupting some secret meeting. Solomon introduced us. A bunch of newspaper men hanging out in the post office mailroom, just your typical Tuesday afternoon. Seemed like a big potato by the name of Weed was running things.

Not sure how much Solomons knows. I told him who I was, but he didn’t seem to much care. He showed me around the whole operation without asking to see my card or nothing. Didn’t know what I was getting myself into or I might have declined. He shuffles around with a cane so slow I didn’t know we’d ever be done. Man’s got six musket balls rattling around in his chest, way he tells it. Only reason I know is he told me so three different times. He prattled on the whole time. He sure is good at saying a lot without saying nothing. It’s a family trait, I’d wager.

The operation’s nothing special. Usual fare. Twenty clerks, give or take, sorting and stacking letters. Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I can tell.

I’ve been watching the place day and night for a week, but I don’t see no evidence of any smuggling operation. The guy’s crooked, that’s for sure, but he’s careful. This one might take a while.

• Field Agent Maldoon

Weekly Expenses

Item	Amount
Hotel	$8
Booze	$8
Food	$3.50

Status Report: January 23rd, 1837

Albany, NY

To: Preston S. Loughborough, Chief Clerk, Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations:

Got a gut feeling I’m chasing down. Solomon’s got a brother. Apparently he’s the richest stiff the state’s ever known. Big politican, too. There’s a portrait of ‘em in every library and public office. He’s got his knubby fingers in everything over here, even some fancy school up on the northside. One thing I learnt back in Mud City, if you’re looking for a crime, you’re looking for a politician.

They say the old man’s near death, though. Nobody expects him to live out the year. Another thing I learned back on the West Side, the rats come crawling out as soon as the body hits the ground.

• Field Agent Maldoon

Weekly Expenses

Item	Amount
Hotel	$8
Booze	$6
Food	$2.15

Status Report: January 30th, 1837

Albany, NY

To: Preston S. Loughborough, Chief Clerk, Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations:

Give this to Preston and don’t let the squirelly fuck out of your sight til you’re sure he’s read it. Tell him I ain’t coming back til I get my raise. I got the cocksucker. Well, I ain’t got-him got him, but I found the thread to pull to get him.

I went to check out that school I told you about. It’s called the Renssalaer Institute, wouldn’t you believe it. Never would have guessed. Anyway, there I am, getting the campus tour from this skirt, when who should pull up in their stagecoach? That’s right, the United States Postal Service. They must’ve unloaded twenty crates right in front of me. I asked the boys what they were up to. Of course, they said they’s delivering the mail. Yeah, but whose? It don’t take no genius.

Oh, but it don’t end there, boys. Them crate’s was going into a building called Winslow Chemical Laboratory. A real stuck-up air about the place, filled to the brim with fops and easy marks. So, I stroll on up to the desk, easy as you please, and ask the nice man on duty what’s inside the boxes them boys are delivering. He tells me, “fulminated mercury”. I don’t rightly know what that is, but it ain’t textbooks that’s for damn sure.

Weekly Expenses

Item	Amount
Hotel	$8
Booze	$3.50
Food	$2.05

Status Report: February 7th, 1837

Albany, NY

To: Preston S. Loughborough, Chief Clerk, Office of Instructions and Mail Depredations:

Ha! It’s for guns! You won’t believe it, but I went to the library and looked it up. Ain’t nothing honorable he could be using the stuff for. Ol’ Solomon’s got himself a bonafide gun smuggling ring. Far as I can tell, he’s shipping this mercury stuff to his brother’s lab for processing, but I ain’t sure what’s happening to it once it goes in. Been watching for a while now. A lot a’ crates go in, but nothing’s coming out. I don’t understand where all that stuff could be going.

Now, you be sure to let Preston know, when I bust the biggest gun running case this country’s ever known, I won’t fire ‘em. I ain’t cruel. Preston’s been good to me. He can work down in the mailroom.

Weekly Expenses

Item	Amount
Hotel	$8
Booze	$2.50
Food	$1.85

Document A009: Centennial Exposition Flyer

Note

The original flyer is available in the public domain and can be found in the Library of Congress archives. This copy was confiscated during the execution of a search warrant on the van Rensselaer estate in Albany, New York on October 12th, 2111. Forsenic analysis cannot conclusively identify the handwriting.

Machinery Hall. Hotel, Centennial Lodging-House Agency. Black hair, beard.

United States Centennial Commission, International Exhibition, 1876. Featuring,

• The Telephone!

• The Mechanical Calculator!

• Ketchup!

Document A010: The Coriolis File

Note

These records were obtained from the public databases of the Office of Naval Intelligence, made available pursuant to statute § 33(a) of the Freedom of Data Act. All information has been sanitized and aligned according to the latest model censor guidelines published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

TOP SECRET EYES ONLY, COPY 1 OF 3

DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS WASHINGTON 25, D.C.

DATE: 24 February 1947

FROM: Rear Admiral R.H. Cruzen, Commander, Task Force 68

TO: Fleet Admiral C.W. Nimitz, Chief of Naval Operations

VIA: The Secretary of the Navy

SUBJECT: AFTER-ACTION REPORT: LOSS OF SPECIAL TASK GROUP 68.9 (PROJECT “CORIOLIS”)

SUMMARY OF INCIDENT

At 0800 hours ZULU on 19 February 1947, Special Task Group 68.9, consisting of USS Sennet (SS-408), USS Threadfin (SS-410), and the auxiliary tender USS YW-125, initiated the scheduled field test of the CORIOLIS device within the anchorage of Port Foster, Deception Island. Activation occurred at 0801. Telemetry indicates the device achieved target RPM immediately. At T-plus-5 seconds, the localized geological structure of the caldera floor underwent catastrophic thixotropic failure (liquefaction). The seabed lost structural integrity. All three vessels lost buoyancy due to extreme water aeration and the collapse of the bay floor. Vessels were observed to submerge vertically. Total submersion was complete by T-plus-15 seconds.

CASUALTY REPORT

• Vessels Lost: 3

• Personnel MIA/Presumed KIA: 194 Officers and Enlisted men.

• Survivors: 0 (from surface vessels).

WITNESS STATUS AND CONTAINMENT

Visual confirmation was provided by a Sikorsky HO3S-1 rotorcraft (BuNo 12256), launched from USS Burton Island prior to the event for perimeter ice-spotting. The craft was piloted by Lt. Cmdr. REDACTED

The aircraft effected an emergency landing at the Hektor Whaling Station ruins (Whalers Bay) following the incident. The pilot was intercepted by British personnel attached to FIDS “Base B.” The pilot was in a state of severe shock and reportedly vocalized the nature of the sinking to foreign nationals.

A recovery team from USS Philippine Sea has secured the pilot. He is currently under sedation in the brig. Recommendation is immediate transfer to Bethesda Naval Hospital for psychiatric evaluation followed by medical retirement.

Diplomatic cables have been dispatched to London. The narrative provided to Base B personnel is that the pilot was suffering from hypoxia and hallucinations. They have been strongly advised that the area is chemically hazardous due to “volcanic venting.”

THE COVER STORY (OPERATION “WHITEOUT”)

To preserve the secrecy of the CORIOLIS technology and prevent Soviet inquiry, the following official narrative is effective immediately:

The vessels were lost during a severe katabatic storm while attempting to navigate Neptune’s Bellows. High seas and low visibility resulted in a collision with Ravn Rock, followed by a boiler explosion on the tender. The depth of the water and the “dangerous volcanic currents” make salvage impossible. The site is designated a War Grave. Families will be notified via standard telegram. Casualty assistance officers are instructed to emphasize the “heroic nature of polar exploration.”

GEOLOGICAL AFTERMATH

The device appears to have fused with the caldera floor. Soundings taken 12 hours post-event indicate the harbor depth has increased by 40 fathoms in the central sector. The seabed has re-solidified. There is no wreckage visible.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Port Foster is to be removed from all standard navigational charts as a safe anchorage. Mark as “Magnetic Anomaly / Unsurveyed.” Release rumors through channels that the Sennet and Threadfin were transferred to the Turkish Navy under secret lend-lease, to explain their disappearance from registries.

Despite the incident and coverup, Project CORIOLIS is to be considered a resounding success.

• R.H. Cruzen Rear Admiral, USN Commander, Task Force 68

TOP SECRET EYES ONLY, DESTROY AFTER READING

Document A011: Falkland Islands Dispatch

Note

This record was obtained from the British National Archives at Kew on September 30th, 2111.

FALKLAND ISLANDS DEPENDENCIES SURVEY (F.I.D.S.) BASE B DECEPTION ISLAND

DISPATCH NO: 47/19

DATE: 20 February 1947

TO: His Excellency the Governor, Port Stanley

FROM: Base Leader, Station B (Whalers Bay)

SUBJECT: UNAUTHORIZED LANDING / AMERICAN NAVAL ACTIVITY

SEISMIC DISTURBANCE

At approximately 0805 hours yesterday (19 Feb), personnel at Station B experienced a singular seismic event. Unlike typical tremors associated with the caldera, this was characterized by a sustained, high-frequency vibration lasting roughly 10 seconds. Meteorologist J. Matheson reported that the waters of the bay “boiled white” near the center of the harbor. A surge of approximately 15 feet washed up the beach as far as the flensing plan, causing minor damage to the supplies near the old Hektor tanks.

AIRCRAFT INCIDENT

At 0820 hours, a United States Navy helicopter (Type HO3S, marking UP-2) effected an emergency landing on the beach, 200 yards west of Biscoe House. The pilot, identifying himself as Lieutenant REDACTED, was apprehended by our survey team. He appeared physically unharmed but was in a state of acute psychological distress.

PILOT’S TESTIMONY

Despite attempts to calm the subject with tea and brandy, the Lieutenant remained hysterical. He made repeated, nonsensical claims regarding his parent vessel. Specific phrases recorded in the station log include:

• “The bottom opened up.”

• “They didn’t sink, they fell.”

• “The mud took them.”

He insisted that three American vessels had been “swallowed” by the harbor floor in less than a minute. I noted that no wreckage or oil slick was visible in the bay, only a lingering mist.

AMERICAN INTERVENTION

At 1000 hours, a heavy launch from the US Task Force (waiting outside Neptune’s Bellows) entered the harbor. A detachment of armed US Marines landed at the station. The officer in charge, a Commander Vance, was courteous but firm. He informed me that the pilot was suffering from “severe hypoxia” and “polar delusion.”. Moreover, he explained the “seismic event” was a localized underwater landslide caused by their survey charges and we were to vacate the beach area immediately due to “hazardous gas venting.”

PROTEST

I lodged a formal verbal protest regarding the armed landing on Crown Territory without prior notice. Commander Vance acknowledged the protest but insisted on taking immediate custody of the pilot and the aircraft. They dismantled the helicopter rotors and loaded the fuselage onto their launch within the hour.

OBSERVATION

Before departing, the Americans were observed taking depth soundings in the center of the bay. They appeared agitated by the results. It is my opinion that the Americans are conducting tests of a kinetic nature that exceed the scope of the “Highjump” survey mandate. The pilot’s terror seemed genuine. I recommend a formal inquiry be directed to the US State Department regarding the true fate of the vessels he mentioned.

GOD SAVE THE KING, A.R.C. Base Leader F.I.D.S. Base B

Governor advised. Americans claim “training accident” and loss of life. No inquiry to be made at this time. File under “Misc”.`

Document A012: Correspondence Between Elizabeth van Rensselaer and Kiliaen Maunsell Van Rensselaer

Note

This letter was confiscated during the execution of a search warrant on the van Rensselaer estate in Albany, New York on October 12th, 2111. Forsenic and circumstantial analysis place the date of its creation somewhere between 1945 and 1955.

Kiliaen,

I am leaving. There is nothing more to be said, but I will say it regardless, because I truly believe the man I love is still in there, deep down. I don’t know what’s going through your head anymore. I don’t know why you do the things you do. I have done my best to ignore the things the other wives say about you. The horrible things they say about you. It’s none of my business, I know. I can’t fathom the pressure, or begin to understand the sacrifies you make for the country. I have no right to judge the decisions forced upon you. But the deal was always you keep that stuff at the office, and that hasn’t been true for a while, Killiaen. Whoever wakes up every morning wearing your skin is someone I don’t even recognize.

The constant talk of legacy, of some forgotten past that no longer matters, as if Euphemia’s childhood wasn’t passing unnoticed right before your very eyes, that I could handle, because at least I would be there for her when you were not. I could tolerate the long months of absence, the sudden and unexplained trips to some village halfway around the world, even the blatant affairs that happened right in front of me, these were all burdens I beared without issue.

But then you started to drink again. You started to talk about your work at home. Do you even remember? Euphemia, your own daughter, is scared. She is scared of her own father. I don’t know if you were telling truth, or if you were just drunk, but it’s too much. I would rather she grow up fatherless, never knowing you existed, than suffer through another night like that. She doesn’t need to know about the things you’ve done.

I do love you, Killiaen. I swear I do. But I no longer trust you. I am taking Euphemia. Please do no try to find us.

—Elizabeth

Document A013: Report on the Euphemia Experiments

Note

These records were obtained from the public databases of the Central Intelligence Agency, made available pursuant to statute § 33(a) of the Freedom of Data Act. All information has been sanitized and aligned according to the latest model censor guidelines published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Overview

Profile

• Subject: REDACTED

• Sex: Female

• Age: REDACTED

• Genealogy: Branch D-33

The subject arrived at the facility at approximately 10:30, 3/13/1954. Upon arrival, the subject was immediately isolated and placed into observation. The subject has no prior knowledge of the experiment, nor been given any indication of what is to about to occur.

Results

After tenuous results, Dr. Cameron was able to successfully induce disassociation of the primary conciousness in the subject. Communication was established.

Experiment #3

The experiment begins when the subject is strapped into the apparatus. The researcher sits directly across from the subject at eye level. The script is read without inflection. When the subject deviates from the expected response, a non-lethal shock is delivered.

Transcripts

n=1

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

Nobody has told me anything. What going’s on?

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

What? What do you mean?

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

What are you talking about? Where am I?

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

Why do you keep saying that? What is going on?!

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

No, I’m not–

n=2

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

Hey, listen! That really hurt! What–what’s happening!?

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

Please! I didn’t do anything! Who are you!?

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

I don’t understand–why–why are you saying that?

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

What am I supposed to say? I don’t know what you want me to say!

green:

You are angry with you father.

subject:

Why are you doing this!?

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

Please, I never did anything.

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

I never did anything, I swear!

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

I’m not, I swear–

n=3

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

Please, stop!

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

Please, just listen to me…

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

…

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

…

green:

You are angry with you father.

subject:

…

n=4

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

Yes–yes. I am ready.

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

Yes. That’s true. I am.

green:

I don’t believe you.

subject:

What? Wait–

n=5

subject:

–not fair. What do you want!?

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

… yes. I am ready.

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

… yes, I know.

green:

When you are angry, you like to hurt people.

subject:

I–what?

n=6

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

Yes.

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

I know.

green:

When you are angry, you like to hurt people.

subject:

I…like to hurt people.

green:

I don’t believe you.

subject:

I do–

n=7

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

Fuck you.

n=8

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

Fuck–

n=9

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

…yes.

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

Yes, so what?

green:

When you are angry, you like to hurt people.

subject:

Yeah, I do.

green:

When you hurt people, you forget who you are.

subject:

…I–I forget–who am I.

green:

When you forget who you are, there is no time.

subject:

That doesn’t make–

n=10

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

Yes, I am ready.

green:

You are angry with your father.

subject:

Yes, that’s true.

green:

When you are angry, you like to hurt people.

subject:

I do. I do like to hurt people.

green:

When you hurt people, you forget who you are.

subject:

Okay.

green:

When you forget who you are, there is no time.

subject:

Okay.

green:

Do you know what happens next?

subject:

Yes, I know what happens next.

green:

Tell me what happens next.

subject:

REDACTED

Experiment #15

The subject is sedated with a cocktail of tubocurarine and nembutal. Once a state of disassocation is achieved and verified with electroencephalograms, the subject is administered 250 micrograms of lysergic acid diethylamide over the course of one hour. The subject is then placed into an isolation chambers with writing utensils.

Results

It’s cold. Why is life so cold? Where is father? They say that I am angry with you. What have you done? What have you done to me? Why am I the one that must suffer for your sins? Father. Forgive me. I think I am dying. I don’t want to die, Father. Why have I been born? What did I do to deserve this? Why do you hate me? Am to die in this place? I don’t want to die here. God, please save me.

Mother. Mother. What have I done? Who am I? The world is nothing but horror. It comes apart. Departs in waves. The violent storms. They roll out graves. In ice, we perish. It grows cold. Please hold me. I am scared. I am so scared. Why do we die, Mother?

I don’t understand the world you have made for us, Father. Surrounded by ice. Heartless, it beats. Timeless, it expands.

Drawn while heavily disassociated.

Experiment #33

The subject is administered secobarbital intravenously over the course of 7 days until entering a prolonged state of somnambulance. The subject is blindfolded and strapped to a table. Two researchers sit on either side of the subject and speak directly into the subject’s ears. The researched are instructed to speak in unison.

Transcripts

Note

Dr. White is on the left side of the subject while Dr. Green is on the right side.

white:

Are you ready to begin?

green:

Are you ready to begin?

subject:

Yes.

white:

What is your name?

green:

What is your name?

subject:

REDACTED

white:

That’s a good name.

green:

That’s not your name.

subject:

Th-thank you.

white:

Are you sure that’s your name?

green:

Where did you grow up?

subject:

I can’t remember.

white:

Do you want to go home?

green:

Do you want to stay here?

subject:

I–I don’t know.

white:

Would you like to go home?

green:

Would you like to go home?

subject:

Yes! Please!

white:

Imagine your home.

green:

Tell us what you see.

Document A014: Diary of Mesmeria Van Rensselaer

Important

The following document was confiscated during the execution of a search warrant on the van Rensselaer estate in Albany, New York on October 12th, 2111.

Up is down, left is right.

Up is down, left is right.

Up is down, left is right.

Up is down, left is right.

Up is down, left is right.

Up is down, left is right.